


come away unscathed

by reclamation



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 20:22:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16002602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reclamation/pseuds/reclamation
Summary: Bela has been in Hell long enough that she jumps at an opportunity to get out. There’s one catch: Crowley wants her to track down a particular soul that got away—a soul by the name of Dean Winchester.





	come away unscathed

**Author's Note:**

> Re-posting some old deleted works. Originally published for the 2013.
> 
> Takes place before 6.20 “The Man Who Would Be King.”

Success in Hell is defined only by survival and relies heavily upon developing unique coping mechanisms. Luckily, Bela has always been a quick study.

She learns to allow the adrenaline, the fear, and the pain to course through her into the flex of her scrabbling fingers and her scream-worn voice until her begging is incoherent. If she doesn’t raise a resistance, it’s like the whole scene has been choreographed—and that somehow makes it more bearable. She learns that when they take a knife to her, it's easiest to go limp and let them cut. She learns that if their hands wander, rough and digging deeper than any blade, she must think about anything other than the ghost of long-dead, familiar hands and the hushed, husky whisper of, “That’s my girl, that’s my Abby.”

Because Lilith’s last gift to her was casually telling Bela’s story to anyone who would listen. That lesson was often harder than the others. Lilith would always start with a conspiratorial smile: “Before she was a thief, she was daddy’s little girl.”

One time, after Lilith stopped by to spectate, one demon said to her, “You can call me ‘daddy’ if it makes you feel more comfortable, baby,” as he thrust into her with her blood dragging half-dried between their bodies. She shattered the bones of her wrists against the bonds that held her in place as she lunged forward to rip a chunk of skin and muscle from his cheek with her teeth. The payback that followed was brutal, but worth every second of the pain. Lilith only watched and laughed.

Then Lilith disappeared as Alastair had before her.

Bela outlasts them all. All the names only ever spoken of in a cautious hush vanish one by one and leave behind only a glaring absence, rumors of their demise, and Crowley’s cryptic boasting.

With the old regime gone, it’s Crowley who comes and makes her the offer: an opportunity to leave, if only she agrees to his terms.

She doesn’t ask for the conditions before she agrees; Bela can’t think of a single thing she wouldn’t do to leave this place.

“Yes, please,” Bela gasps, trying to tamp down on the hope she  _knows_  is dangerous. Her words come out thin and desperate even to her own ear, “I’ll do it. Whatever it is, I can do it.”

“Fine,” Crowley says. “You’ll work the crossroads. Nothing too difficult, really. But,” he pauses, inhumanly dark eyes at stark contrast with his almost paternal amusement, “I have an errand that takes precedence. Don’t let me down.”

That’s how Bela Talbot ends up walking around in a body that isn’t really hers, too grateful to sneer at how far she’s fallen and ignoring the inescapable stink of sulfur clinging to her stolen skin.

 

 

 

Her first client, for lack of a better word, is a pudgy, middle-aged man who barely manages to fumble his way through the summoning ritual with shaking hands. He is utterly boring. Instead, Bela is enthralled with her newfound freedom at this quiet, backwoods road. Most of all, she savors the clear nighttime silence as untold luxury. There isn’t a single scream to be heard, much less the cacophony of Hell’s cries and whimpers.

The man is impatient with her reverie. He grabs her arm and says, “Hey, are you…?”

The press of his skin against hers sets her teeth on edge and stoke the ever-ready embers of her fury. She glares, purposefully flashing her actual eyes at him before allowing them to slip back into deceptively human brown with her next blink. He snatches his hand away violently as he stumbles backwards over his own feet. He was shaking before, but now he’s practically quivering in terror. Bela smiles at him, "Hands to yourself now."

“Your eyes,” he stammers, “they’re red!”

Bela answers with as cutting a tone as she can muster, “Don’t be naïve. What did you expect when you buried that box? I’m not jolly old Saint Nick and I’m not here to hold your hand through this, so let’s get to it, shall we? What did you want?”

“I want women to,” he clears his throat, embarrassed, “I want them to, you know. Want me.”

His request is well within her power to grant.

She says, “Oh, honey. I’m not a miracle worker.”

His face reddens either in anger or further humiliation. “But—!”

“Tell you what,” Bela offers, pretending to put some thought into it, “I’ll agree to get you one woman. You can even choose which. You get ten years with her, then I come collecting. That’s the standard period for these things.”

He agrees with a sullen nod. He asks, “So we’re done? That’s it?”

“Unfortunately, not quite.”

She makes the press of her mouth to his so hard that it’s more a punishment than a kiss.

 

 

 

Crowley checks in the next day. She’s steeled herself for his inevitable appearance, but the second she lays eyes on him the sweat slides down her cold palms. Bela fiercely wishes that possession wouldn’t allow for the transfer of such reactions. If only using a human body had more of a buffer between her and the nerves that flinch away from Crowley, maybe he wouldn’t grin so smugly.

“Not bad, darling,” he says. “You’ve managed to negotiate a handful of common souls for the Pit. I’d be impressed, but honestly, I expect more of someone of your talents. You could have gotten the first with only three years. Start thinking  _business_.”

His words are a deliberate goad and she knows it, but it rankles her pride anyway. She asks, voice completely level, “How about that errand you mentioned, then?”

“Right, right. With every new promotion comes new responsibilities—and I’m all too happy to pawn this one off on you,” Crowley says, drawing a slip of folded paper from his pocket with a short flourish. “A few souls went missing recently—awfully hard to keep track of everything what with the gates opening, the apocalypse, etcetera, etcetera. The short of it is that I want you to figure out the state of our contract, so to speak. Top priority.”

He holds the note out towards her. She takes it, careful not to let borrowed skin touch borrowed skin.

There is only a single name written on it in spiked, angry letters:

DEAN WINCHESTER

When she looks back up, Crowley is gone.

 

 

 

Hunting down the Winchesters always takes a little effort, so Bela conducts a few more deals on her way out of town.

The disparity between what each person believes their soul is worth is horrifying: a professor wants academic acclaim in their field, an ailing father asks for his children to be cared for after his death, a writer wants poetry wrought in beautiful words, a brother asks only for the sabotage of his successful siblings, and a young couple decide to go in jointly together for moderate wealth and comfort. Much of it, the desperate want and greed, seems so trivial.

But she smiles and takes all their souls.

No one haggles with a demon, really. Not until the last deal—the couple. The man takes her aside in a burst of ridiculous chivalry and asks to shoulder the entire payment.

Bela can’t help but laugh in his face, because the math is simple: “You only have one soul to give.”

“Please,” he begs. “There’s got to be a way.”

“It’ll cost.”

“Please,” he repeats.

She sighs, hearing the echo of Crowley’s lecture, but gives in, “You get two years instead of the ten. And her soul remains her own.”

“Thank you,” he breathes in relief, like she was doing him a favor by damning him in the first place.

Bela only shrugs and answers, “Your funeral.”

She gets a solid lead on the Winchesters within a few hours—and that’s a testament to the strength of the network she’d built before her death that enough still remained to ease this task along. Or maybe they weren’t as isolated as they once were. Either way, the burner phone sounds with a text message giving name of the city where the Sam and Dean were last spotted.

Bela is still looking at the phone, a little unsettled that this is still so  _easy_ , when a small hand tugs at her sleeve. A small girl—a  _child_ —who couldn’t possibly be more than ten years old, if that, peers at her with wide eyes. She looks like more a doll than a living creature with the ringlets of her dark, curly hair framing her circle-shaped face and falling across her full cheeks.

Suburbia surrounds them, which isn’t an unusual habitat for a spoiled child, but it’s nearing midnight and there’s not another soul in sight. The girl is completely unbothered as she looks up at Bela trustingly.

The girl asks, “Miss! Miss! Are you the one who can grant wishes?”

Something dark constricts in Bela’s chest. She smiles at the girl, though the stretch of skin feels more like a grimace, and corrects her as gently as so many years in the Pit will allow, “Not exactly, sweetheart.” She extracts her arm smoothly, “Run along home.”

For the second time that night, she’s being begged: “ _Please_!”

The tiny hand is back on her and gripping tighter. The kid’s voice is watery—frantic. “The man said you could make him stop. Please, I want him to leave me alone. Please, please, please—”

And Bela is frozen under those small, weak fingers. She feels too tense and overly warm in her meatsuit. “Who do you want to stop?”

“Daddy.”

Bela leans down, tucks an errant curl behind the girl’s ear, and whispers, “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Emily.”

“You won’t need to worry about your daddy anymore, Emily.”

 

 

 

Emily’s home is a perfectly bourgeois affair, complete with picket fence and the surname ‘Wallis’ etched in bright, child-friendly letters across the mailbox. Bela steps out the front door, leaving a smear of red across the brass door knob, and finds Crowley waiting against the banister of the front steps. He looks perfectly out of place with his dark suit contrasting against the dull, safe beige colors of the nearly identical tract homes. Crowley also looks as if he’s been waiting awhile, settled into a too casual lean as he examines his nails.

When he looks up, all his practiced nonchalance morphs into equally-constructed amusement as he eyes her up and down. His eyes linger along the finger-shaped smudges of blood on her cheek, the larger splash on her coat, and her still drenched hands.

“Get lost on the way to the Winchesters?”

Inside, the living room floor is liberally strewn with the bloodied pieces of a man that is not her father. Daddy Wallis’ crushed skull is wedged under the coffee table. The carcass itself is ravaged, unrecognizable some feet away from the head. She had started with the tongue. Next, she had skimmed off any unlucky extremity with a dull kitchen knife: nose, ears, fingers, toes, and penis. She left his eyes for the last possible moment before shock and unconsciousness took him over.

The mother was absent or she would have gotten the same treatment.

Meanwhile, the girl—her soul still safely intact—is asleep in an upstairs bedroom and blissfully unaware of anything except the fact that tonight she is safe from unwanted attention.

Bela doesn’t answer Crowley’s question. There isn’t anything to say that he doesn’t already know.

“Sentimental,” he comments anyway.

It’s indisputably a warning.

 

 

 

Some things are universally true, Bela knows. One of those things is that, despite being dangerous bastards, the Winchesters are inherently predictable creatures. She can rely on the fact that they’ll be driving that same car, still chasing the same sorts of hunts, still crashing in some dismal hotel, and still frequenting the same types of dingy bars.

Thus, she's not surprise to find them both in a dimly lit barroom. Sam is looming over a pool table, brow furrowed in that puppyish worried look. Dean is prowling, scoping out the women present with open appreciation.

Typical, she thinks.

Dean’s eyes land on her. The slow grin the spread across his lips curls through her warmly and any plan of attack she was formulating dissolves. He winks and moves towards her, already signaling at the bartender for another beer.

She’s startled for only a moment. His expression isn’t open exactly, but it is flirtatious and a hell of a lot less guarded than she deserves. She thinks of shooting at two beds in the dark, heart pumping adrenaline and self-loathing as the clock ticks steadily onwards.

“Let me buy you a drink?” he offers, confident and bright.

Then she remembers that she’s riding some young librarian she found in Virginia. Ever since the woman had stopped her mental thrashing and screaming days ago, Bela keeps forgetting her for longer stretches at a time. Disguised like this, she could take him to whatever cheap motel he and his brother are crashing at, fuck him through the mattress, and he  _still_  wouldn’t recognize her.

A tempting idea.

She might even do it if she could be sure he wouldn’t smell the blood and sulfur on her.

Instead, Bela laughs and smiles back widely. She says, “I never did cash in on that angry sex.”

Years have passed—although longer in Hell than for Dean—so he has to puzzle it out. His face clouds with confusion, ‘oh shit did I forget someone I banged’ shame, and then clicks over to recognition like a light switch being flicked on. The second it really sets in, he reacts physically, immediately readying for a fight. The easy set of his shoulders stiffen into aggression. His hand snaps to hover above an unseen weapon within his jacket.

This, too, is typical of a Winchester: as always, Dean seems only about two steps off outright violence.

“Bela. You’re dead.”

“Dead and damned. But rumor has it that so were  _you_.”

Like clockwork, Sam alerts to Dean’s tension and comes to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother. How well they communicate without saying a thing is impressive.

“What do you want, Bela?” Dean asks. She’s sure that he says her name for Sam’s benefit.

“Can’t a girl drop in and visit some old friends?”

“Bela,” Sam says, pensive. It borders on being a question.

“Oh very well,” she sighs, hands up with her palms out, “I’m not here for any nefarious purpose. So let’s keep this civil, shall we? I’m here to talk.”

The dread she didn’t realize was building in her stomach rocks her resolve. The sick feeling roils through her, surely shifting her eyes from librarian-brown to her brand new set of demonic monstrosities. She doesn’t know whether they show up as black or red this far away from the crossroads.

The effect on them is instantaneous. Dean shifts forward, hand now wrapped along a handle of what can only be a knife. He bites out, “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

She answers, “Oh, but we do. You see, I’m doing a bit of accounting for my boss—”

Dean snorts.

Where Dean is angry disdain, Sam is careful curiosity: “What do you mean accounting?”

“I suppose you could say that the King of Hell has me looking at the books. The numbers aren’t quite matching up. And, frankly, it’s not hard math. One deal, one soul.” She points to Dean’s chest, “You’re not supposed to be here. They call it eternal damnation for a reason. I certainly didn’t see the round trip option when I signed on.”

“I’m not going back,” Dean grates out as Sam squares his shoulders protectively at his side.

In the few minutes of this conversation, this has evolved into more than an errand for Crowley or a test to prove herself. Hell is etched into every piece of her being, suffering so clearly remembered that it scrabbles across her lungs like talons at the memory, but Dean is standing there looking  _whole_. So she asks him directly: “How did you do it, Dean? Why are you an exception?”

Dean practically  _growls_  his response, “None of your business.”

Sam nudges Dean lightly with an elbow, which seems to settle some of Dean’s anger and discomfort. Sam asks, “But you should already know that. If Crowley sent you, Bela, why are you asking questions he already has the answers to?”

Bela bites her lip. Her assignment is only to find out whether Hell still has claim to his soul, not to find out the exact details about his seemingly miraculous escape. One of the first things Lilith taught her was that hope was a dangerous thing. That could only hold especially true for a hope as enticing and impossible as this.

She redirects the conversation, “I was curious to hear the explanation from his own mouth. Everyone else has to pay for their decisions—but not Dean Winchester. No, he gets to walk away without a scratch while the rest of us burn.”

Sam flicks a glance to his brother in concern; Dean, even under the unflattering barroom lights, looks pale.

The whiskey-scented air is becoming stifling.

She tries a different gambit, “I need to see the contract, Dean. I really didn’t come here to cause trouble.”

“There’s still a contract?” he asks, voice creaking.

If she still had a heart to call her own, it might break at seeing Dean so uncertain.

 

 

 

They relocate.

The motel room is every bit as dismal as she expected. In a way, it reminds her of the Wallis suburb home in its ordinariness: two queen size beds are adorned with moss-colored coverlets, the walls are a nondescript tan, and the furniture is all obviously purchased cheaply and by bulk. The only redeeming quality, if it can be called that, of the room is that it has a surplus of lamps that make it feel much warmer than it actually is.

With the better lighting, she gets a better look at Dean, too. She can see the tired lines of Dean’s face, the weight he carries in his shoulders, and pinch of discomfort in his own body. He looks so much older than he had the last time she saw him.

“The contract is written in your skin,” Bela explains and pretends to not notice Sam palm the knife Dean had been holding earlier. Her eyes do, however, briefly catch the elegant decorations along the blade. In another life, she would already be figuring out how to steal and sell such an obviously powerful object.

“Perhaps you should sit,” she offers to Dean. “I haven’t exactly done this before.”

“So I’m your lab rat? Great.” Dean shakes his head jerkily, “I’m fine standing.”

“Roll up your sleeve,” she says. Dean shrugs off his jacket and follows her direction without comment, though his jaw is set hard.

Sam shifts, protective and watchful, behind her as she curls her fingers around Dean’s wrist. She only hopes Sam won’t kill her without reason. He always used to be the gentler of the two hopeless boys.

She leans in closer to Dean to examine the bared skin. The muscle and bone tense and shift under her inspection. With a slight twist of her hand, she angles his arm towards the light and tries to will the contract into being by imagining the devastating words spelling out ‘damnation’ in whatever terms Dean had set.

Bela would bet any amount of money that the words ‘Sam Winchester’ will be etched somewhere. Probably front and center and literally soul deep.

Nothing happens.

Where the clauses and terms of a demonic contract should be indelibly printed into Dean’s flesh there is nothing but smooth, unmarked skin. He is untouched, unblemished, unscathed.

“Well?” he demands.

“There’s nothing,” she answers, disbelieving. “There’s not so much as a hint of any previous contract.”

Bela only realizes that her grip has tightened when Dean gives a grunt of pain. It takes another beat to realize that he tried to jerk away, but remains caught in her unbreakable grasp. The realization does nothing to deter her rising anger. It makes her feel vicious and strong as she allows the rage to wrap her fingers tighter around the fragile, knobbed bones.

“How did you do it, Dean?”

“Bela!” Sam yells, and she remembers the knife.

Except Bela doesn’t get a chance to let Dean go, because she hits the wall with enough force to feel the plaster crack under her spine.

After the fact, a voice that is too low and rough to be Sam commands, “Release him.”

Apparently, pain to the host is not always muffled by demonic possession either. The librarian—‘Sheila Lee, I’m Sheila Lee,’ she had insisted for hours on end before giving in to Bela’s control—is certainly aware enough to react with a futile, silent scream. Sheila is more distressed than Bela at the spasming pain. It’s hard not to have a warped perspective on a mere broken rib or two after having your intestines removed by inches day after day.

What legitimately disturbs Bela is that she missed a fourth person entering the room. And, judging by the crackling power and energy around him, the newcomer isn’t entirely human.

The guy looks unassuming with his mussed hair and unfashionable trench. Only the unwavering gaze belies the impression. That and the fact he can toss people around a room like ragdolls.

Dean and Sam exchange a look.

“What?” Sam shrugs awkwardly, “I texted him when we left the bar. Thought Cas might want to know that you were planning on a,” Sam gestures at Dean, “soul-oscopy. Even if. You know.”

“I would have been here sooner had I not been detained,” the man who must be ‘Cas’ interjects. For whatever reason, the sentence sounds admonishing.

Dean shuffles a bit, looking unsure and lost, “Yeah, man. Heaven stuff. I get it.”

Bela takes the odd spat as an opportunity to straighten herself out and prepares to ditch Sheila if necessary. Her job here, after all, is done. The Winchesters, martyrs that they are, would probably offer the disoriented librarian a ride home. Really, it’s a tidy end to it all.

Only that unearthly stare gets leveled at her again and she can  _feel_  fury through it. Cas’ statements are much like his question, flat and hard, “Crowley sent you. What were you hoping to accomplish?”

Bela holds her hands with palms out placatingly, “I’m just the accountant.”

“You,” Cas says, tilting his head and still looking right through her, “are a crossroads demon.”

Sam jerks back, “What?”

“Figures,” Dean says derisively, “Seems like your type of work, Bela. Didn’t have much of a conscience when you were human. What’s your sales pitch? ‘I sold my soul and you can, too’?”

She can’t help the reflexive sneer or the clouding of her eyes. Certainly, Sheila’s voice isn’t meant to hold the sort of bitterness as she answers, “Even if you erased your contract doesn’t mean we’re not exactly the same, Dean.”

Castiel moves between them.

“I raised Dean Winchester, reformed him, and released him from any contractual bond to Hell. He is no longer yours to claim,” he says. The words reverberate through the small room.

Bela has always been gifted with a strong sense of when to move forward and when to retreat: “I think that’s my cue to leave. Thanks for the lovely time, boys.”

Her senses must be a bit rusty after so much time in the Pit, because Sam is standing between her and the door. The knife from earlier isn’t exactly being  _brandished_ , but it’s a close thing.

“You know we can’t let you go, Bela,” Sam says apologetically. This version of Sam has less softness, where Dean looks world-weary, Sam is harder and a little fractured at the edges. They’re both different, changed across the years, maybe as much as Bela herself has.

Dean grabs something from a duffel bag—a permanent marker. He makes a long, sweeping stroke on the floor that quickly becomes the circumference of a large circle. She knows what it means before the two ends meet.

“If you think I’m going to walk into a devil’s trap willingly,” she protests, edging sideways across the thin carpet away from Sam and his knife, “you better think again.”

Dean keeps on drawing with painstaking care.

In the end, it only takes a gentle nudge from Sam—knife still in hand—to compel her into the circle. They don’t tie her up.

“How many souls, Bela?”

Sam asks the question, but she addresses her answer to Dean, “Do  _you_  of all people  _really_  want to get into the politics and ethics of selling one’s soul with me?”

“Answer the question, Bela,” Sam prods.

“You Winchesters and your hero complexes,” she says. “There’s nothing you can do anyway. I don’t even hold the contracts.”

The entire situation is ridiculous. Sam is looking at her like she’s a puzzle. Dean looks angry, but in a shaky sort of way that gives away his bravado. And they’re both still bulldozing ahead, trying to save the world through blind stubbornness. Meanwhile, Cas—whatever he is—is hovering on the outskirts of the room, seemingly content to watch the impromptu interrogation. All in a hotel that cost less than her cheapest blouse.

Sam tries again, “Bela, this can’t be what you want. You weren’t,” he pauses, “all bad before.”

“Hell isn’t exactly a good influence.”

Dean stalks over to the cheap desk, grabs the hotel stationary off of it, and throws it at her. The paper and pen thwack against her thigh and fall to the carpet. “Names, Bela. Then you’re letting that girl you’re possessing go.”

Frustration knots in her, twisting against his willful ignorance and ridiculous attitude. This isn't about the souls. And Dean, who will apparently never be returning to Hell, can’t possibly understand.

There is a lot she doesn’t say, at the top of the list being ‘ _You’ll ruin everything for me_.’ Because he doesn’t need to be  _told_  that she’s spent her time in Hell being used in every possible way, broken down in ways that aren’t physically possible at all, and crying for the chance to leave that place every second. If she has to trade a few random souls of people dumb enough to deal with demons, then that’s a small price to pay.

So she keeps her answer short: “You don’t actually think I’ll hand everything over.”

“Names,” he repeats.

Bela’s propensity for mistakes hasn’t run its course for the night, because she says, “Emily Wallis,” although she knows it’s a stupid move, needy and thoughtless in a way that she can’t afford.

Dean raises an eyebrow at her apparent cooperation.

“She’s fourteen,” Bela says, even though the actual Emily Wallis is far younger. “Her father was kind of like yours—loving in all the wrong sorts of ways. Only Emily’s daddy went to her room every night while Emily’s mother pretended not to notice.”

Dean’s caught somewhere between outrage at her insult and disgust. Sam’s eyes have softened, his knife lowered. The gap between the reactions is miles wide in the brief pause.

“You took her soul?” Dean asks, “Jesus Christ, she’s a kid, Bela.”

“At least neither of her parents will bother her again,” Bela says, mixture of truth and lie rolling from her tongue easily.

“You really don’t have a conscience, do you? You’re,” Dean points at her, “a demon—a monster.”

“Yes, I should have thought that was obvious.”

Sam touches Dean’s elbow, a calming gesture. Sam’s voice is soft when he asks, “What about Emily? Who will take care of her?”

Bela laughs sardonically, “She’ll have to take care of herself. Not that her parents were much good at it anyway.”

“She doesn’t deserve to lose her soul because the people who should have protected her didn’t,” Sam argues.

Bela has the feeling that at least one Winchester knows that they’re not talking about Emily Wallis.

“I’ll give you the names,” she concedes.

 

 

 

Dean and Sam leave to try the impossible task of restoring the souls she bargained away. Ever the gentlemen, they pull a chair into the devil trap before leaving her stuck in the hotel room with the creature strong enough to forcibly pull Dean out of Hell.

Bela watches him and Cas studies her in turn.

He hasn’t spoken to her since he claimed Dean Winchester’s soul—that terrible, unbelievable declaration—so she startles when he breaks the silence.

“Crowley is using you as his pawn.”

She nods, “I figured that much out myself.” And she had. The situation clearly is designed for some greater reason than for her to merely ascertain that Hell has no contract with Dean. She can’t see the full scope of the larger plan. She deflects: “You know that everyone is a piece on the board.”

Crowley’s appearance doesn’t seem to surprise Cas half as much as it does Bela. She rocks backwards hitting the barrier edge of the trap, but Cas doesn’t so much as blink. Excuses are already bubbling up behind her lips, so she bites down hard.

“Leave the Winchesters alone, Crowley,” Cas says, sounding every bit as commanding as he had growling ‘release him.’

“Oh, Cas, never any fun,” Crowley sighs dramatically. “I see you found something of mine.”

Castiel looks out the corner of his eye at Crowley. His expression only changes minutely, but he looks even more disapproving. He orders, “Make the escape look plausible.” Then he disappears with only a soft rustling sound.

“Angels,” Crowley says, rolling his eyes heavenward.

She has a plentitude of opinions if Dean Winchester merits his own personal angelic bodyguard. But she has more pressing concerns.

Bela toes the hard line of the trap. Being physically held under Crowley’s cold gaze feels a hundred times more dangerous than Sam and Dean. It feels a lot like being back on the rack in that uncomfortable squirm of awful, gut-wrenching anticipation before the agony actually starts.

“Dare I ask how goes the errand?” He walks around the circle slowly, slowly. “Or shall I assume that the Winchesters got the drop on you before you managed anything useful?”

She takes a long breath and takes the offensive: “You knew Dean didn’t have a contract. And you knew the angel wouldn’t let me near him. It would be easier to play your game if you’d tell me what you want. As you know, I’m quite good at acquisitions—be it an object or intelligence.”

“Ah, but that wouldn’t be half as fun,” Crowley responds, far too pleased for the mess of a situation.

“Let me out,” she tries, motioning towards the trap.

“I’m waiting for you to get the point first, sweetheart.”

Bela grimaces, “What point? You sent me on a futile task.”

“Try again,” Crowley answers. When Bela doesn’t respond he continues, “Use your head. Why did I send  _you_  to get information I already have?”

Bela doesn’t answer; this line of inquiry can only lead to bad places.

Crowley throws up his hands in impatience, “Consider it a lesson. Well, and a test. The Winchesters do seem to breed misplaced loyalty.”

“You wanted to see if I was willing to go against them?”

“Obviously.”

Her stomach churns. She narrows her eyes. “But that’s not all.”

“No.”

“I was a distraction.”

Crowley gestures expansively, “There you go. I like to keep them off their game. Oh, and I wanted to worry the angel a bit. He’s been getting a bit uppity for a business partner, you know.”

She tries to imagine Cas conspiring with Crowley and fails to pull up anything other than Cas’ fierce protectiveness over Dean when he burst into the hotel room. She asks, “He's working with you? Not Sam and Dean?”

“What did I say about the Winchesters and loyalty? But Cas is playing both sides of the fence currently,” he grins. “It was probably too much to hope that they might actually cotton on and make my job a little easier.”

“What are you getting out of this?”

“My share of Purgatory, unhindered by the good intentions of any Winchesters.”

“What—”

“Question time is over,” he says, and punctuates the statement with a snap that cracks the hotel room—and devil’s trap—straight down the middle.

“At least your great escape will cast a bit more suspicion on dear Castiel. I may get something out of this yet.” Crowley grabs her arm, eyes suddenly black and expression dark, “But we have one last stop. Something that must have slipped your mind.”

 

 

 

Bela recognizes where she is immediately. She doesn’t need to look any further than the mailbox.

She has no doubt that Emily Wallis is inside that brightly lit house.

“It wasn’t a coincidence she found me,” she says. Despite the sun, numbness spreads through limbs and makes her fingers catch clumsily against her jacket as she wraps her arms around herself.

“Not at all,” Crowley answers, and says nothing more.

“I,” her voice falters.

“Listen, darling. I’m going to make this easy. I want that girl’s soul. It doesn’t matter what my reasons are—let’s just say she owes us for services rendered. Go get it for me and you get to keep your hall pass from downstairs,” Crowley says before he disappears, leaving her alone in front of the house.

She allows herself a few minutes to wallow, breath rattling in Sheila’s chest and insides twisting. This, she knows, is out of her control and the knowledge is a gnarl in her gut. She imagines asking Sam and Dean for help, even though she’s never asked anyone for anything in her life. Even though she knows that she'll do no such thing. Unlike Dean, Bela didn’t luck out enough to have an angel save her from herself. Whatever needed to be done, she has always done it on her own—and now is no different. The train of thought is fortifying. She swallows down the building sense of resistance, flexing her fingers uselessly at her sides.

Then, she takes the first step up Emily’s porch, foot catching at the edge of the stair gracelessly.

The floorboard creaks quietly beneath the new weight. She stops.

Her next step is more steady.


End file.
